


Once we were free

by ScottieIsImpatient



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Angst, Dark, Hurt, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:28:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28145352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScottieIsImpatient/pseuds/ScottieIsImpatient
Summary: We can't remember the last time we smiled...
Relationships: Malcolm Reed/Charles "Trip" Tucker III
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Once we were free

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo.
> 
> It's almost 1am and I was binging thru some angst fics and this plot bunny bit me right in the ass. This is inspired by many of greatunironic's fics over on ff.net (I believe on Ao3 they're under Meridian Siler, though they don't seem to have their own account. It was posted with the Warp 5 complex)
> 
> It's POV first person from Malcolm, because I thought I'd try it. Turned out well.
> 
> Enjoy.

Once we were free. Once we were individuals; we had lives of our own. We had ambitions. We had passions. We had stories to tell others and they had stories to tell us.

Once we could smile.

But now we can’t remember the last time we smiled.

I look at him across the room and his blue eyes stare back at me with a hollowness that has become sickeningly familiar. I know I must look the same.

We stare at each other for god knows how long. We don’t move. We don’t speak. There are no more stories to tell, nothing new to talk about. I’m not sure I can talk if I want to. My throat is sore from screaming.

He blinks at me from where he sits slumped against the wall. Then he shuffles forward, bit by slow, agonizing bit. And before I know it, I’m moving too. I have long since lost feeling in my legs. I use my arms to drag myself across the jagged stone floor. His face doesn’t even twist as he puts weight on his mangled leg.

We reach the glass that separates us and this is as close as we’ll get to each other. He raises his hand first. His blue eyes pierce into me, conveying the question his voice cannot, and I raise my hand too.

I can almost feel our palms touching through the cool glass.

I know I can.

Then the shouting begins. We flinch but we cannot take our eyes off each other. It takes too much energy to do so. We are so, so tired; I’m not sure how much longer we can take this.

There are hands all over me. I can feel them, but it’s as though everything is coming from another world. Voices speak to me; not just at me. Voices from months lost. I should be able to put names to them.

I cannot.

I focus on him instead. On his hollow blue eyes which still haven’t left me. Hands touch him, too. The hands are attached to people like us, not the aliens which have held and tortured us for an eternity.

The voices have started to fade out. My eyelids grow heavy. They must have given me something; something to make me confused and drowsy, for the world isn’t making much sense at the moment.

After all, they are saying we’re free. But I know now that there is no such thing.


End file.
